The Power Progression in Dawntrail

[Ranaku]

A question i asked myself for a while now is how SE will introduce a new threat to us players. Or a reason why all of the sudden the new enemies and bosses are stronger than the end of the universe and existence itself.

We fought dragons, primals, gods, ancients and literally the end itself. So my question is, what big bad evil will come next? How will SE make it believable that after defeating Meteion we struggle again with some random trial and dungeon bosses?

[Karious]

We took a break on Island sanctuary and our power level decreased from not doing anything.

[ReynTime]

They're not going to.

The WoL gets one-upped by chumps during the main and sidequests all the time. You're as powerful as the story needs you to be. If you try to apply logic to it, it gets worse when you consider the New World is full of Lv90+ creatures.

[Ranaku]

We took a break on Island sanctuary and our power level decreased from not doing anything.

I beg your pardon, you did maybe nothing but i slaved myself away for Tataru and her ingenious evil dunesfolk plan to use the WoL for her personal gains. She just wants to create a trading empire to rival Lolorito and we Warriors of Light pay the price for it!

[Sir_Tonberry]

We'll give a large portion of our light aspect aether to stop Zeromus. That will sap our strength and render us so helpless that we need two small children to guard us on our trip abroad.

[Ranaku]

They're not going to.

The WoL gets one-upped by chumps during the main and sidequests all the time. You're as powerful as the story needs you to be. If you try to apply logic to it, it gets worse when you consider the New World is full of Lv90+ creatures.

For most of the expansions it worked tho. Maybe not for the mobs but for the boss progression. In ARR we were a normal adventurer, in HW we lost Hydaelyns gifts cause of Midgardsomr, in Stormblood the whole thing was about how we can't win a war just alone no matter how powerful we are, ShB we got thrown into a new world and pumped full of light until we broke, EW well had the end of the universe and despair itself. So up until EW there was some sort of not so steady threat progression, especially when it came to the story bosses of the expansions.

But i can't really see that in the future, it makes no sense why anything should be more powerful than us by now. Was weird alone that after defeating nidhogg, zodiark etc. now Zeromus which is just dragon+zodiark shard is more powerful than us.

But yeah, maybe it is wrong to try to apply logic to it...

[Zaniel]

It all depends how you interpret the lore as it pertains to gameplay. The WoL's power height has always been very specialised against aether-manipulation or divine threats (eg primals, Meteion et al) and we still need to work against regular foes, always have. We still need a bunch of friends to help us kill threats that aren't based on aetheric shenanigans, we can withstand bolts of eldritch power but a hail of bullets can still hurt us. Its a directed sort of op'ness rather than just generic unstoppableness against everything.

[Kranel_San]

A question i asked myself for a while now is how SE will introduce a new threat to us players. Or a reason why all of the sudden the new enemies and bosses are stronger than the end of the universe and existence itself.

We fought dragons, primals, gods, ancients and literally the end itself. So my question is, what big bad evil will come next? How will SE make it believable that after defeating Meteion we struggle again with some random trial and dungeon bosses?

To put it simply, it's the MMO logic.

Just look at the other games, FFXI for example. A lv70+ little worms in it are stronger than literal gigantic bosses. In WoW, a lv80 boar is stronger than an actual lv60 demon lord boss who has seen entire civilizations destroyed. And the list goes on...

Story-wise, you never had an issue with killing adds or mobs. Those lv90+ zone mobs and trial bosses you're going to fight? They're not stronger than you. It's just a game mechanic to keep the "fun". If we want to follow the lore literally, then you should be able to one-shot everything that's not insanely powered-up by something else.

[Rithy255]

you trip on a banana peel when you arrive to the new area, which leads the WOL to be in great pain throughout the expansion.

Honestly it feels like its going to be hard to impress anyone in terms or urgency and scope after SHB then EW, but I'm really not feeling this new expansion setting.

[Gralna]

A question i asked myself for a while now is how SE will introduce a new threat to us players. Or a reason why all of the sudden the new enemies and bosses are stronger than the end of the universe and existence itself.

We fought dragons, primals, gods, ancients and literally the end itself. So my question is, what big bad evil will come next? How will SE make it believable that after defeating Meteion we struggle again with some random trial and dungeon bosses?

Easy, we don't. Yoshida already said after EW, that story will slow down then start building up for the next big multi-expansion story arc. You don't just immediately jump from world threat to world threat, without building up the story and motives first, otherwise you get WoW where you get to ridiculous scenarios of the puppetmaster, being a puppet of the puppetmaster, of another puppetmaster, of another puppetmaster...

We also have a few more ticks on power scale enemies can go up to, as powerful as the ancients were, and metion became, they aren't gods, and are only a threat on a planetary scale. We can still go to universal scale, and on our own, strongest we've defeated are two unsundered ascians without having to resort to a gimmick.